The Ballad of Zoren
This is just a short little poem I wrote about a character that I've had in my mind for a few years now. She was supposed to be one of the main characters in a novel I was going to write, but I had never really gotten around to writing it, so her story was never told. I hope that this poem gives her at least a little bit of justice.
There was once a hooded maiden
Who had trodden many paths,
Masking her figure with dark, black cloaks,
Hiding her face with a sash.
From northern country she once did hail
Though her home it is no more,
Now her fate lies with the roads,
Escaping her past, full of scorn.
Concealed within her weathered cloak
Lies the truth behind her guise:
Two thick, steel-gray swords
Stand waiting at her side.
The first of the blades, which damn her soul,
Was given as a gift,
By an "associate" of her murdered father,
Whose death was bloody and swift.
"Do I take the life that ended his?",
She pondered in the night
And in the end, the guard was dead.
Two wrongs did not make a right.
The second of the deadly pair
She had forged anew,
In the smithy of her father,
As he had taught her in her youth.
With the weapon of her father,
And the blade she smithed with skill,
She vowed to hunt with fervor,
Those responsible for the kill.
Many seasons passed,
And still she seeks her goal,
Never resting, never tiring,
Until their blood runs cold.
And yet her heart of stone,
Hardened by death and grief,
Is not entirely damned to hell,
There is hope, for even this thief.
For if she learns to cast aside,
The revenge that burns in her soul,
Perhaps one day she can atone for her sins,
And love, like she had once known.
But until that day, should it come,
She'll continue to stalk the night,
Searching, ever searching,
For some way to make it all right.
There was once a hooded maiden
Who had trodden many paths,
Masking her figure with dark, black cloaks,
Hiding her face with a sash.